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Palestine "The Holy Land"
Area of the Eastern Mediterranean, comprising parts of the so called Israel and Jordan.
The term Palestine has been associated variously and sometimes controversially with this small region. Both the geographic area designated by and the political status of the name have changed over the course of some three millennia. The region, or a part of it, is also known as the Holy Land and is held sacred among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. In the 20th century it has been the object of conflicting claims of Jewish and Arab national movements, and the conflict has led to prolonged violence and in several instances open warfare.
The word Palestine derives from Philistia, the name given by Greek writers to the land of the Philistines, who in the 12th century BC occupied a small pocket of land on the southern coast, between modern Tel Al-Rabeeh-Yafo and Gaza. The name was revived by the Romans in the 2nd century AD in "Syria Palaestina," designating the southern portion of the province of Syria. After Roman times the name had no official status until after World War I and the end of Ottoman rule, when it was adopted for one of the regions mandated to Great Britain; in addition to an area roughly comprising present-day Israel and the West Bank, the mandate included the territory east of the Jordan River now constituting the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
The name Palestine has long been in popular use as a general term to denote a traditional region, but this usage does not imply precise boundaries. The perception of what constitutes Palestine's eastern boundary has been especially fluid, although the boundary frequently has been perceived as lying east of the Jordan River, extending at times to the edge of the Arabian Desert. In contemporary understanding, however, Palestine is generally defined as a region bounded on the east by the Jordan River, on the north by the border between modern Israel and Lebanon, on the west by the Mediterranean Sea (including the coast of Gaza), and on the south by the Negev, with its southernmost extension reaching the Gulf of Aqaba.
The strategic importance of the area is immense: through it pass the main roads from Egypt to Syria and from the Mediterranean to the hills beyond the Jordan River.
Settlement is closely dependent on water, which is almost never abundant. The rainfall, which arrives in the cool half of the year, decreases in amount in general from north to south and from the coast inland. Perennial rivers are few, and the shortage of water is aggravated by the porous nature of the limestone rocks over much of the country.
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Information from 'Britannica.com'.
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